RIM, talking about BlackBerry’s application count, needs only super applications

5th October, 2010 by adina
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Alan Panezic, vice president of Research in Motion’s product platform management, defended the 10,000 low application count of BlackBerry’s App World and stroke back at Google and Apple. He strongly rejected the idea that having 50,000 or more application in the store was essential and also reiterated the notion of “super applications”, which RIM valued so much. By “super applications” he meant heavily used applications able to really improve the phone and at the same time be useful to developers. Referring to Android and the iPhone application counts, he considered them deceptive as they included too many redundant applications as well as low value ones.

Panezic said RIM really did not need two hundred “fart applications” in its App World, it these ones were the kind of application one uses only a few times without ever opening it again. Looking at ads or clicking on them, buying premium upgrades – the application does not add any value to the device. Panezic, however, agreed that BlackBerry’s application sales were poor compared to the phone’s market share and put the blame on the immobility of cost. He characterized BlackBerry’s applications as being “darn expensive” compared to those existent on other stores.

These statements are accurate in part but ignore many problems of App World, intensively criticized. For instance, many of the high prices were imposed by the company itself. Until App World 2.0 came last month, any application had the price of $3, while iOS and Android applications only cost 99 cents.

The allusion to quality is also questionable as many large titles are mainly ports from other platforms. Applications announced on other platforms are difficult or sometimes impossible. RIM has paid little attention to graphics before the BlackBerry PlayBook and also does not equip its devices with fast graphics. This way RIM practically excludes them from gaming or visually intensive count.

The accessibility of App World has been another major concern. Before the Torch and recent BlackBerry handsets, the store was nothing but an optional download. This was the reason why many users overlooked it and even did not realize that it was available.


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